Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1) by Brandon M. Herbert Page B
Authors: Brandon M. Herbert
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looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out my ears, “ Um, no, I didn’t…”
“Oh…” Great, now I was hearing shit too, maybe it was already too late and I was losing it.
Sounded likely.
We stayed in the art room almost every day after school. I used the extra freedom to my full advantage. On days we didn’t have any extra work to do, so we snuck down the alley to Fen’s house to study.
His place was tiny, a little two bedroom home with cracked stucco and a splinter-prone porch that eerily reminded me of the house in Coeur-de-Alene I grew up in, and it was just a couple blocks down Wolf Road from mine. I could count on one hand the number of times I saw his mother; usually it was just a quick ‘hello’ and an exhausted smile as she shuffled through the living room in her scrubs to try and get some rest before her next double shift.
It reminded me of the way things were with my mom back in Idaho when I was young. Fen kept the house operating; he took care of the chores, and tried to make dinner for his mom before she got home. I helped him whenever he would let me; the guy had a stubborn streak a mile wide.
“I was raised by a nurse too, I know how it is,” would usually shut him up though.
In truth, the similarity between us kinda creeped me out. Similar houses, raised by single mothers who put themselves through nursing school to provide for us. Both trained to shop on a slim budget and pinch pennies into plates before the age of ten. Neither of us had a dad. I couldn’t begrudge him being enamored with John, but I couldn’t quite stamp out the jealousy either.
It was a good thing I had the extra time available; Fen didn’t just help me study for school, he was also bent on educating me in Werewolfery 101. Sometimes Fen would try to stuff so much into my brain that I would be reeling half an hour in. What made it harder was that this… noise kept fading in and out of the background, distracting me, like a fuzzy cloud of voices. I frustrated myself when I couldn’t quite understand something, but the amused look in Fen’s eyes made it worthwhile when I got it.
He explained the types of shifts that were—potentially—possible, and I felt like I needed a notepad to jot down everything as he spouted it off. My brain just about liquefied trying to keep up with all the jargon about possession shifting and bilocation shifting, one of them was where your animal form went out on its own like a ghost—but which one?
A notepad probably wouldn’t be a bad idea…
When he started rambling about the ‘ therian’s role’, I had no clue what he meant, so I asked.
“We’re technically therianthropes, not lycanthropes,” he replied, his charcoal never ceasing movement. “This isn’t a mental illness; we just… seem to have animal souls. There are a lot of fakes on the internet just looking for attention, but there are real Therians like us out there too. The question we all ask is why are we here? Why are we the way we are?
“It’s part of the reason why I want to study ecology and wildlife biology. Being human in appearance gives me an advantage to help protect the wild from humanity. But inside I am a wolf, and think like a wolf; so I see things differently. Like an inside agent; a wolf in man’s clothing.” He smiled, but it wilted a little at the edges.
“I have to find a way to use what I am. We’re made this way for a purpose, we just have to figure out why we walk between worlds; but can never belong in any of them. A freak even among freaks… Only in other shifters like ourselves can we find even a moment’s brief reprieve from the isolation, and yet even that is so often denied us…” His tone grew sour; but he quickly masked his expression.
“The shamans of the world… they know better than anyone else what it is like… They also walk between worlds, between the spirit and the flesh. They journey into the Lowerworld and bring back spirits to heal and make the
“Oh…” Great, now I was hearing shit too, maybe it was already too late and I was losing it.
Sounded likely.
We stayed in the art room almost every day after school. I used the extra freedom to my full advantage. On days we didn’t have any extra work to do, so we snuck down the alley to Fen’s house to study.
His place was tiny, a little two bedroom home with cracked stucco and a splinter-prone porch that eerily reminded me of the house in Coeur-de-Alene I grew up in, and it was just a couple blocks down Wolf Road from mine. I could count on one hand the number of times I saw his mother; usually it was just a quick ‘hello’ and an exhausted smile as she shuffled through the living room in her scrubs to try and get some rest before her next double shift.
It reminded me of the way things were with my mom back in Idaho when I was young. Fen kept the house operating; he took care of the chores, and tried to make dinner for his mom before she got home. I helped him whenever he would let me; the guy had a stubborn streak a mile wide.
“I was raised by a nurse too, I know how it is,” would usually shut him up though.
In truth, the similarity between us kinda creeped me out. Similar houses, raised by single mothers who put themselves through nursing school to provide for us. Both trained to shop on a slim budget and pinch pennies into plates before the age of ten. Neither of us had a dad. I couldn’t begrudge him being enamored with John, but I couldn’t quite stamp out the jealousy either.
It was a good thing I had the extra time available; Fen didn’t just help me study for school, he was also bent on educating me in Werewolfery 101. Sometimes Fen would try to stuff so much into my brain that I would be reeling half an hour in. What made it harder was that this… noise kept fading in and out of the background, distracting me, like a fuzzy cloud of voices. I frustrated myself when I couldn’t quite understand something, but the amused look in Fen’s eyes made it worthwhile when I got it.
He explained the types of shifts that were—potentially—possible, and I felt like I needed a notepad to jot down everything as he spouted it off. My brain just about liquefied trying to keep up with all the jargon about possession shifting and bilocation shifting, one of them was where your animal form went out on its own like a ghost—but which one?
A notepad probably wouldn’t be a bad idea…
When he started rambling about the ‘ therian’s role’, I had no clue what he meant, so I asked.
“We’re technically therianthropes, not lycanthropes,” he replied, his charcoal never ceasing movement. “This isn’t a mental illness; we just… seem to have animal souls. There are a lot of fakes on the internet just looking for attention, but there are real Therians like us out there too. The question we all ask is why are we here? Why are we the way we are?
“It’s part of the reason why I want to study ecology and wildlife biology. Being human in appearance gives me an advantage to help protect the wild from humanity. But inside I am a wolf, and think like a wolf; so I see things differently. Like an inside agent; a wolf in man’s clothing.” He smiled, but it wilted a little at the edges.
“I have to find a way to use what I am. We’re made this way for a purpose, we just have to figure out why we walk between worlds; but can never belong in any of them. A freak even among freaks… Only in other shifters like ourselves can we find even a moment’s brief reprieve from the isolation, and yet even that is so often denied us…” His tone grew sour; but he quickly masked his expression.
“The shamans of the world… they know better than anyone else what it is like… They also walk between worlds, between the spirit and the flesh. They journey into the Lowerworld and bring back spirits to heal and make the
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